A few years ago I served on an advisory board for Forward Movement, an editorial arm of the Episcopal Church that actually publishes tracts (it calls them pamphlets), a daily devotional called Forward Day by Day and a number of books. I disagree with much of what Forward publishes, but I feel an enduring affection for the people behind the imprint.
Late in the summer I received a courtesy copy of John Walker: A Man for the 21st Century, which Forward planned to distribute more broadly than its usual offerings. Then I remembered a feature story by Evan Thomas in the Aug. 2 Newsweek. In the story, Thomas mentioned an angle that was mostly neglected during the campaign: Kerry's years at St. Paul's Episcopal School in Concord, N.H., and his admiration for a priest named John Walker:
Kerry could not complain to his parents ("I just didn't"), but he was fortunate in finding a mentor in John Walker, the school's first black teacher (and later the Episcopal Bishop of Washington). Walker entertained Kerry and other social unfortunates . . . with Harry Belafonte on the record player and encouraged them to read Ralph Waldo Emerson (who wrote in his landmark essay "Self Reliance," "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think").
The book is by Robert Harrison, an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Washington. It does not mention Walker's friendship with Kerry, and it touches only a few times on Walker's time at St. Paul's:
He was always teaching, stretching, persuading, gently chiding or encouraging, calling forth the Church to do its slow but vital work of "binding up the wounded, and, without drumbeat or fanfare, offering its life for the lives of the people." He "opened privileged eyes to a world filled with inequality," according to a friend from his St. Paul's days, but always with a "kind, gentle, loving manner." He was closer than a Father to students from that school, changing their lives in ways both "quiet and deep." He was a comforting presence, leaving anyone he met with the feeling that he liked them, as one student wrote, "no matter who I was, what color I was, or what I did."
Kerry's failed bid for the White House deprives Forward of an extended marketing opportunity, but perhaps this noble book can still find an audience among students of the Episcopal Church in the late 20th century (Walker died in 1989.)
John Walker: A Man for the 21st Century is available from Amazon or directly from Forward Movement.